


all I want for Christmas (is you)

by grydo2life



Category: Marvel (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Christmas fic, Feelstide 2012, Fluff, M/M, Secret Santa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-21 00:04:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/591194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grydo2life/pseuds/grydo2life
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“Well, technically it’s not from me. It’s from your Secret Santa.”</i>
  <br/><i>“I thought that wasn’t happening this year.”</i>
  <br/><i>Clint’s voice is soft, almost plaintive, when he responds, “It’s tradition, Phil.” </i>
</p>
<p>Or, 5 presents Clint gave Phil, and 1 that Phil gave back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	all I want for Christmas (is you)

**Author's Note:**

> Feelstide 2012 Prompt 45: SHIELD Secret Santa!
> 
> Now with [adorable fanart](http://kimmybacondoll.tumblr.com/post/38654311095/so-i-read-all-i-want-for-christmas-is-you-by) done by kimmybacondoll on tumblr! Everyone should check it out :)

**Five presents Clint gave Phil…**

1\. 

The first one is a fluke as far as Clint is concerned. He doesn’t even really want to participate, but Hill strong-arms him into it with a few well-placed glares and even better placed threats. Technically she doesn’t actually have the authority to follow through on any of them — Clint may be a probationary agent, but he’s on Director Fury’s shortlist, which basically makes him untouchable until he’s done with training and ready to be tossed to the sharks — but if there’s one thing being in the circus ever taught him, it was not to tempt fate against dangerous women who wield deadly weapons. 

So he lets himself be talked into taking a name out of the ridiculous Santa hat Hill holds out to him and agrees to actually show up at SHIELD’s annual holiday party. The one thing he doesn’t agree to is to actually give a shit about any of it.

So he doesn’t.

The gift he picks out for his recipient is cheap and tasteless, some ugly polyester tie with the worst Rudolph print Clint has ever seen. He tosses it into a gift bag and doesn’t bother to sign the tag. At the last minute he shoves the receipt in there too, because in spite of it all he’s not a total asshole. He shows up at the holiday party and stays just long enough to drop off his gift and make sure Hill actually sees him. Then he bolts for the nearest bar and gets so wasted he passes out in an alley halfway back to his apartment. 

 

2.

The second one comes several years later, although not through any fault of Clint’s own. Getting promoted to full agent status means he gets to spend most of his Decembers out of the country knee-deep in covert ops, assassination jobs, and the occasional milk runs. Most of SHIELD is actually grateful for this; in the few years he’s been working for them, Clint has gained something of a reputation. He’s hard to work with, doesn’t take orders well, and he runs through handlers faster than they can be replaced.

Until he doesn’t, that is. Clint takes one look at Phil Coulson and expects him to last a week. A year later, he buys the man a steak dinner and sneaks it into Medical as a thank you for taking a bullet to the shoulder that would have ended up in Clint’s forehead had he not stepped in. 

Now they’re both benched until the New Year while Coulson heals and Clint…

Well. Clint feels like he kind of has some making up to do.

They make it stateside in time to catch Hill as she’s hunting down the last couple of people to draw from the Santa hat. She looks surprised and just a little bit suspicious when Clint requests to join in, but doesn’t hesitate to let him pick out a name and add a slip of paper with Clint’s own in its place.

He ends up picking some wet-behind-the-ears junior agent, but it only takes him a few hours of working the gossip circuits to find out who pulled Coulson’s. He tracks the woman down armed with cupcakes for bribery tools, but to his surprise he barely manages to get out, “Hey, I was wondering if you wanted to trade—” before she squeaks a relieved affirmative.

(He shares the cupcakes anyway. The spirit of giving and all that.)

He actually sticks around for the party this time. He doesn’t really socialize, but he does lurk on the outer edges and occasionally returns a smile or a nod when someone spots him. He stays for about an hour, long enough to drop in on Hill, Sitwell, and Fury. Then he collects his gift and slips away down to Medical. Coulson is alive and mostly well, sitting up in bad and watching some terrible reality TV show that Clint files away for future blackmail material. 

“Barton,” he greets when he spies Clint in the doorway. “Don’t you have a party to be at?”

“Got a little too crowded for my liking.” Clint tells him. “And besides, I figured someone should bring this down to you.” He holds up Coulson’s present, gives it a careful shake, and then sets it down on the tray table in front of him. “Merry Christmas, Sir.”

Coulson peers at the box, then back at Clint consideringly. He looks bemused as he takes it in hand and carefully peels away the wrapping paper. When he gets a look at the actual gift, he huffs in amusement. “Really, Barton?”

Clint shrugs, sheepish. “Seemed sort of appropriate to me.”

Coulson chuckles and carefully pulls the mug out. It’s white, porcelain, the kind of novelty item you pick up in a gift shop somewhere. The words ‘World’s Greatest Boss’ are printed on one side, but someone has taken a purple sharpie and crossed off ‘Boss’ and replaced it with ‘Handler.’

It’s a stupid gift. Clint knows it, but he knows fuckall about Christmas and he’s trying here. He half-expects Coulson to laugh him out of the room, but the other man does nothing of the sort. Instead, he holds the mug up so he can get a better look and then looks at Clint with a kind expression. 

“Thank you, Barton.” He says sincerely and Clint, for just a brief moment, thinks he sort of gets why Hill is so stuck on this holiday thing.

 

3\. 

The third one takes even longer than the second one did. Clint’s life just gets busier as time goes on. He makes a place for himself at SHIELD, establishes himself as someone capable and worthy of respect. He makes peace with his old handlers and a sense of camaraderie with his fellow agents. He has the respect of most of his superiors, the friendship of a few of them, and somewhere along the lines he picks up a Russian assassin that inserts herself into his life like she’s always been there. And through it all, Coulson is there, watching his back and talking in his ear, chuckling at Clint’s terrible jokes and nudging him back in line when he gets just a little too close to the edge. 

Clint’s a little bit flabbergasted by that last bit. He’d expected Coulson to be long gone by this point, but the man has hung on with a tenacity that’s almost frustrating. If Clint is honest, Coulson’s presence is the closest thing to stability he’s ever had in his life and in the face of it all Clint has begun to feel something frighteningly like dependence creep up on him. 

So if he happens to be a little protective, well. No one can really blame him.

“I don’t understand why this is so important to you.” Natasha is giving him that look again — the one that means she thinks he’s a class A moron who’s doing something stupid.

Clint doesn’t pause in his work. Most of the office doors in SHIELD are laughably easy to break into, but Hill’s, like most of the superior agents, has extra measures in place, mostly to keep wayward junior agents from stumbling into something that might get them killed. 

“It’s the principle of it, Tasha.” He says. “It was his favorite shirt and he used it to save my life and now he won’t let me buy him a new one to make up for it.” Clint doesn’t actually remember much of that op. He’s got a fuzzy recollection of taking a shot to the gut and Coulson’s panicked voice as he’d slipped into unconsciousness and he knows that sometime in all of that the older man had stripped off his shirt and pressed it against Clint’s wound to stave off his bleeding to death. But otherwise, it’s all just a big, blank hole in his memory. 

What he has a far better memory off, albeit one a little bit foggy from the pain medication, is slurring a promise to replace the shirt and having a strained Coulson telling him not to bother, that it was fine.

Which—it really wasn’t. But that’s okay, because Clint has a plan. 

“I don’t see what Coulson’s shirt has to do with breaking into Hill’s office.”

“This is where she keeps the hat, Tasha. If I can get his name, I can give it to him for Christmas and then he’ll _have_ to accept it. And since Hill put the fear of god into everyone about trading names, this is the only way I’m guaranteed to get him.”

“You realize the only word I understood out of that was ‘Christmas’?” 

Clint huffs in amusement. “Later we’ll sit down and have a long talk about insane corporate holiday traditions.” He promises. The lock on the door clicks suddenly and Clint grins triumphantly.

He’s not really lying to Natasha — part of it really is the principle of it. He doesn’t like feeling like he owes people and he’s already so indebted to Coulson that he’ll never dig his way out of it. A shirt, though, he can balance out. 

But it’s more than that. He _likes_ Coulson. The man is sharp and smart and he tolerates Clint when most people would have thrown him back for being too much trouble. He has no idea if the older man feels the same, or even if he feels anything for Clint at all. It’s entirely possible that the only reason he puts up with Clint is because Clint is the best marksman anyone’s ever seen and he’s smart enough to know that Clint needs some kind of tether or else SHIELD might lose him. It doesn’t really matter, though. (It does, actually, but not like that.)

The point is, somewhere along the line Coulson became Clint’s, and Clint takes care of what’s his. Simple as that.

The party rolls around early this year, because Christmas falls on a Tuesday and Fury is actually just as much of a holiday freak as Hill that he decides to give them all a four day weekend to celebrate. They have the party on the Friday before and for once, Clint’s actually sort of feeling the holiday cheer. 

He blames it mostly on the spiked eggnog. 

(And maybe a little bit on the fact that someone convinced Fury to wear a green and red elf hat, which is actually kind of hysterical, but not nearly as much as Natasha’s deadpan expression combined with the belled reindeer antlers she stole from Woo.)

It’s nice, really, and when the present exchange rolls around, Clint goes to join everyone else around the plastic tree in the corner. He’s never participated like this before and it’s kind of awesome, watching everyone’s reactions, spotting the ones who actually put some effort into it versus the ones who just drop gag gifts that everyone chuckles at. A timid junior agent gives Natasha a DVD set of Russian ballets and everyone holds their breath until her expression turns briefly wistful as she thanks them softly. Agent Jefferson from R&D gives Clint a fortified Nerf bow that has Fury scowling and threatening disembowelment if he catches Clint shooting it in the building. 

When Coulson’s turn rolls around, Clint subtly shifts closer to get a better look. Coulson handles wrapping paper the way you might expect a little kid to, which is surprising to junior agents but not to anyone that actually knows him. He tears it away and tugs out Clint’s gift, and then—

—and then he goes very still and Clint feels him stomach drop out in a brutal moment of _shitfuck_ regret. 

If anyone else notices, they don’t comment. Coulson takes care not to unfold the shirt and says, “Thank you, Barton,” in a way that Clint has never heard from him before. 

The party falls back into full swing and no one seems to realize that Coulson has withdrawn from the activities and moved to a quiet corner in the midst of it all. Clint waits until everyone else is suitably distracted before making his way over, trying to ignore the aching inside of him that keeps telling him to bolt instead.

Coulson has the shirt in his hands when Clint finds him and he’s looking at it with an expression of open, quiet devastation. Clint kind of wants to curl up somewhere and die. 

Instead, he says, “So, I fucked up.” Coulson doesn’t blink or start or give any indication that he wasn’t already aware of Clint’s presence. He also doesn’t deny it. Clint waits to see if he’ll get an actual response. When he doesn’t, he asks, quietly and half-desperate, “Tell me how?”

Coulson is quiet for long enough that Clint wonders if he’s not getting the silent treatment. But then the older agent exhales and everything in him just kind of deflates. “I nearly got you killed.” He says, his voice raw, and suddenly Clint gets it. 

He gets it and he hates it.

“You cannot be blaming yourself for that—” He starts, but Coulson cuts him off.

“It was my op.”

“You weren’t the one who gave bad intel.”

Coulson is silent, as if he’s mulling that over. Then he says, very quietly, “I almost lost you because I made a bad call.” His fingers tighten in the fabric of the shirt.

Clint feels a sudden lump in his throat. “It happens.” He says. He shouldn’t have to say it; Coulson knows this better than anyone. Clint has never seen him be rocked by a bad operation before; he’s always been the type to shake it off, pack it up, and deal with it effectively. This is… not like him.

Coulson looks up at him and says, “I don’t want that to happen to you.”

Clint sort of feels his whole world tilt on its axis at that admittance. His chest tightens and his throat goes dry and suddenly he really, really has no idea what the fuck he’s doing. 

“…tell you what,” he says. “I’m going to go get us both another drink. And then you and I can go find some place quiet and burn that.” He nods at the shirt in Coulson’s hands and the other man looks at him consideringly. 

“We could just return it and get your money back.” There’s an edge of gratefulness to Coulson’s voice as he says it, like he’s thanking Clint for getting it, for not leaving him hanging.

Clint grins and does his best to make it cheeky and carefree. “But then it wouldn’t be a gift, Sir.”

Coulson laughs. “Alright.” He says, and when he smiles him, Clint feels his world start to shift back towards something like normal. 

 

4\. 

The fourth one is the one that changes everything.

Hill tracks Clint down a week before she’s set to actually start passing out names and shoves a slip of paper into his hand with a scowl.

“Here.” She snaps. “Since I know it’s just going to end up in your hands anyway.”

She’s still bitter about him breaking into her office last year. He’d kind of hoped she might have started leaning towards forgiveness, what with the holiday season and all, but apparently not. 

Hill storms away — or at least does the subtle, hard to notice Hill-equivalent — before he really has a chance to respond. Clint glances down at the paper in his hand, the name _Phil Coulson_ scratched out in familiar scrawl. 

Then he tracks down Natasha and invites her out to get drunk.

“I don’t see why you’re tying yourself into knots over this,” Natasha says to him, when they’re several shots in and Clint is just starting to feel a pleasant buzz in the back of his brain. “It’s not like it’s going to be any different from last year.”

“It _is_ different.” Clint corrects. He motions at the bartender to pour him another. “It’s… personal.”

“And it wasn’t before?”

“We weren’t friends before.”

Natasha gives him a look that says she knows he’s not being straight with her and she’s right, actually. But Clint’s not ready to talk about that yet because the truth is, the whole thing is a lot more personal than it ever was before for a lot of reasons, the least of which was friendship. The past year has seen a subtle shift in his relationship with Coulson — Phil, he’s Phil now when they’re off-duty — and it’s one that Clint has been avoiding processing. Mostly because every time he tries, he gets this _feeling_ somewhere inside of him that scares the fuck out of him. 

Natasha is looking at him with a knowing expression. “Do you need help finding a gift, milaya?”

Clint scowls. “No.” He grumbles. Then he regrets it, because in her own way, she’s just trying to help. “Just… help me get plastered, please?”

She does. Clint both loves and hates her for it in the morning.

The thing is, the gift both is and isn’t a problem. It’s not one because he actually already has the perfect present, although he hadn’t intended on it when he’d bought it from a thrift store a month earlier. The Captain America thing is something that Coulson has only recently brought up with Clint. Clint considers it something of a milestone between them, an important sign of trust from the older man that still has Clint beaming whenever he thinks about it. Clint had stumbled across the card almost by accident and had bought it on impulse. He’s been floundering on what to do with it ever since.

Because here is where it actually is a problem: it’s _personal_. More so than anything Clint has ever done before and he’s not sure if he’s ready to put himself on the line like that.

He goes in circles like this for the next few weeks, inwardly battling and weighing his options. He also spends a lot of time lurking in the ventilation above Coulson’s office. Coulson is kind enough not to call him on it, although he does occasionally remind Clint to feed himself or go home to sleep.

By the time the 24th comes up, he’s made absolutely no progress in anything but driving himself crazy. Fed up and out of time, he gives up, finds a box for the card, and tells himself that it’ll be okay, even if he doesn’t really believe it.

He can’t bring himself to stay at the party after he drops off Coulson’s present, nerves getting the best of him quickly. Instead he retreats up to the roof and wedges himself into a spot that’s mostly protected from the wind. He comes up here a lot; enough that the people that know him will be able to find him if they need him, but not so much that strangers might check here first. He likes the view and the quiet. Being high up doesn’t hurt, either.

He’s not sure how long he stays there; long enough for him to zone out and lose himself, at least. 

Long enough, apparently, for someone to come looking for him.

“Clint,” Someone touches his shoulder and he jolts out of his thoughts. Coulson backs away enough to give him some space and says, “You’ll freeze if you stay up here.”

“Oh,” Clint says. “Right.”

He lets Coulson take his arm and pull him upright. “You missed most of the party.”

“Yeah? Anything good happen?”

“Sitwell got so drunk that we had him singing love ballads to Fury.”

It’s so far out of left field that Clint can’t help but laugh. “Really?”

“No.” Coulson gives him a furtive grin and Clint chuckles. In spite of the older man’s earlier warning, Coulson doesn’t make any move to try and get Clint to leave the roof. Instead, they stand by the edge and look out over the city. Coulson hasn’t bothered to take his hand back from where it’s curled around Clint’s arm and Clint is hyperaware of the warmth seeping from his palm and the way his fingers press into the fabric of Clint’s coat. “Any particular reason you decided to hide up here all night?”

Clint shrugs awkwardly. “Just… wasn’t feeling social.” He half-lies. 

Coulson makes a considering noise. “That’s a pity. I would have enjoyed your company.”

Clint sucks in a breath and tries not to choke on it. Coulson does this sometimes, drops little bombs like that into the conversation like they’re casual comments on the weather. Clint is never sure if they’re hints or jokes or nothing at all and it drives him absolutely crazy. 

“Thank you, by the way,” Coulson goes on when Clint doesn’t respond. “For the gift. It was very thoughtful.” He’s giving Clint _that_ smile, the one that makes Clint’s toes curl up in his boots and his stomach flutter. It’s not a fair thing to do when Clint is already feeling like an awkward, blushing mess. 

“It wasn’t a big deal,” Clint says, going for flippant. 

“It was a $300 collectible.” Coulson looks amused suddenly. “Hill nearly threw a fit over it, you know. Apparently the spend limit is there for a reason.”

“No one ever pays attention to the spend limit.” Clint grumbles. “She’s just got it out for me.”

Coulson chuckles and then they’re quiet for a few moments after. It’s nice and comfortable and for a moment, Clint nearly forgets about everything else. And then Coulson pulls away and gives his shoulder a little pat. “Well,” he says, “now that I’m sure you’re not going to freeze to death, I should probably head home.”

“Right,” Clint says. He tries to keep the disappointment out of his voice, but he’s really not that successful. “Thanks for checking up on me.”

Coulson nods and smiles. “Merry Christmas, Clint.”

He turns away and suddenly, Clint can’t take it anymore. All he wants in that moment is to reach for the older man and, well. Clint has never exactly been known for his impulse control.

“Phil,” he says and when Coulson turns around, he stumbles forward and presses their lips together.

He expects a lot of things right then — for Coulson to push him away, yell at him, reject him. 

Coulson doesn’t do any of that. 

Instead, he stands stock still for just long enough that Clint tries to back away and apologize. Then, as if he’s only now realized what’s happening, he reaches up and pulls Clint back to him, deepening the kiss and drawing it out so long that Clint starts to see stars.

When they pull away, Clint is breathing hard, flushed and just a little bit dizzy. Coulson presses his forehead against his and the intimacy of it makes Clint quake. “I was wondering if you were ever going to do something about that,” he says.

Clint just laughs and buries himself into Coulson’s arms, reveling at the way Coulson curls around him in turn. He’s embarrassed and flushed and he’ll probably catch something for being out in the cold too long, but in that instant, he’s too damn happy for any of it to matter. 

 

5\. 

The fifth one isn’t supposed to happen at all. 

It’s been years since Clint and Coulson became Clint-and-Phil, but only months since Loki tried to make it just-Clint again. There is no party this year; it’s in bad taste even for SHIELD’s morbid sense of propriety. Even people on the streets are uncharacteristically somber this year. It doesn’t feel so much like a holiday when the world is still trying to piece itself back together.

Clint spends Christmas Eve in a chair beside a hospital bed, watching his husband breathe and doing his damndest to keep his smile in check.

Phil keeps shooting him dirty looks; being stuck in a hospital room isn’t exactly a fun time and cabin fever has long since begun to set in. Clint can’t bring himself to be bothered by it. Phil is _alive_ and Clint is pretty sure not even Loki himself could bring him down off his high at this point. 

“Oh, shut up.” Phil grouses even though Clint hasn’t said a word in over an hour. He’s cranky from being weaned off the heavy narcotics, but Clint takes it with a grin and refuses to let Phil take his hand back from where Clint has captured it with his own. 

“I love you,” Clint responds. There’s just the slightest bit of cheek in his tone, lighthearted but not insincere. It’s enough to make Phil huff in frustration.

“That’s cheating.” He complains, but the fight’s already drained out of him and when Clint squeezes his hand, he automatically turns his around so their fingers can tangle.

They watch TV for a while, some ridiculous movie with too many explosions and car chases that Clint knows Phil picks out for him. When the movie ends, Clint looks at Phil and says, “So, I have something for you.”

Phil quirks an eyebrow at him. “Really?”

“Well, technically it’s not from me. It’s from your Secret Santa.”

“I thought that wasn’t happening this year.”

Clint’s voice is soft, almost plaintive, when he responds, “It’s tradition, Phil.” 

Phil’s expression softens and he rubs his thumb against Clint’s skin soothingly. “Alright. Let’s see it, then.”

Clint beams and retreats just long enough to grab Phil’s gift. Then he’s back and setting it on the other man’s lap with a grin. “It’s not much,” he warns. 

And the thing is, it really isn’t. It’s a stupid little thing that Clint had spotted in a shop months earlier, before Fury had come tracked him down and told him that his husband was not nearly as dead as he’d been told. But in the instant he’d seen it, he’d forgotten, had bought it and was on his way out to his car thinking _wait ‘til Phil sees this_ when he’d remembered.

Looking at it, after that, had made him equal parts miserable and angry. But he’d never been able to bring himself to return it. 

Now, he’s glad that he didn’t.

“I’m sure it’s fine.” Phil assures him. “My Santa knows me pretty well.” 

Clint grins and motions him to open it. Phil does and when he pulls out the plush toy — a cartoonish hawk clearly meant to be dressed as Hawkeye, with a little bow and everything — he laughs in spite of how much it hurts.

“Was this even properly licensed?” Phil asks, lightly touching the hawk’s beak, eyes still sparkling with mirth.

“I have no idea,” Clint admits. He’s beaming, he knows, and he probably looks like a crazy person, but that’s okay. “Probably not.”

He reaches up a hand to brush one of the toy’s wings and Phil settles his on top, stroking his knuckles gently. “Thank you,” he says, and then regretfully adds, “I wish I had something for you.”

Clint shrugs it off; it’s not important and at that moment, he really doesn’t care. “It’s fine.” He turns his hand and tugs Phil’s down so he can drop a kiss to it. “You can make it up to me next year.”

Just the fact that there’s going to _be_ a next year is enough for him, really. And maybe that’s showing on his face, because Phil’s giving him that soft _I’m going to love you until all the bad things go away_ look and tugging Clint up for a proper kiss. “I love you too, you know,” Phil tells him, and Clint smiles.

“I know. Merry Christmas, baby.”

 

**…and one that Phil gave back.**

“Are you sure it’s not crooked? It looks crooked. JARVIS—”

“It’s not crooked, Tony.”

“It’s really not.”

From where he’s sitting on the sofa, Clint leans over and comments, “You know, being here is kind of like living with the Three Stooges. Only with two really smart ones.”

Beside him, Natasha smirks. “Funny, that sounds like a commentary on _our_ life.”

Clint scowls and smacks her on the arm. Phil chuckles at them both and then turns his attention back to helping Pepper and Steve convince Tony that the tree did not need to be moved another 3 degrees in any direction. 

A lot has changed in the past year. Too much for Clint to keep track of, sometimes. The big ones are easiest: becoming an Avenger (for real this time, none of this ‘honorary in the heat of battle’ crap like with Loki), being unofficially shifted off the SHIELD roster to accommodate his new duties, moving into Stark-now-Avengers Tower. 

Learning to live with Phil again after months of thinking he’d never get to have that again. 

It’s the little ones that trip him up, like waking up in the Tower and not feeling the need to grab for a weapon because of the unfamiliar surroundings, or not tensing up automatically when Steve pats his shoulder or Tony nudges him out of the way when he’s working. The things that he doesn’t even notice until they’ve already been happening for a while. It’s a little overwhelming sometimes, but he gets through it. It helps that Phil is there every step of the way, Natasha watching both of their backs while they go.

Really, about the hardest part of it all has just been learning how to abandon the old routines; the old traditions.

Or, in the case of the holidays, learning how to adapt them to suit a group of superheroes.

“Star or angel, Pep?” Tony asks, holding up one of each ornament. Pepper gets to choose because the tree was actually her idea; Tony had been fervently opposed to it up until he’d realized that having a live tree meant he could test out his new and improved roomba modifications.

Pepper takes in the tree, nearly finished now but for the final touches, and then points. “The star.”

Tony grins and passes the star over to Steve, who puts it on the highest point of the tree. Then all three of them pull back to admire their work. 

“That looks good, guys,” Bruce says, coming out of the kitchen with Thor on his heels. They’ve been on baking duty at Thor’s behest and now they’re carting out what appears to be enough cookies to feed an army. 

Or at least a god and a super soldier.

“We should probably do the presents now,” Steve suggests. He looks a little regretful at having to do it on Christmas Eve rather than Christmas morning. “Just in case something pops up between tonight and tomorrow.”

“That is an excellent idea.” Tony agrees and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out the source of his excitement. “Who wants to go first? I elect myself.”

“Phil should.” Pepper suggests, shooting Tony an unimpressed look. He grins at her shamelessly in response. “It was his idea we do a Secret Santa in the first place.”

“Agent!” Tony crows, excited in spite of the fact that he has to wait for his gift. He makes a dive for the pile of wrapped gifts under the tree at the same time Thor does. 

Thor wins.

“Son of Coul!” He booms as he passes over the small, thin wrapped package while setting Tony back on his feet. “A very festive Christmastime to you!” 

Phil takes the gift with a smile and a brief word of thanks and Clint tilts his head to get a better look, curious. Phil had made him promise this year to actually play fair, at least for their first Christmas as a group, so for once he has no idea what’s in the box. The tag reads ‘From: Steve’ and everyone shares a brief grin at the way the very tips of Phil’s ears go red at that. He tears away the paper carefully and everyone but Clint pretends not to notice how adorable it is when he lights up at the sight of the signed copy of Captain America Issue #1. 

The rest of the gifts are passed out and opened up with something akin to glee from each of them. Tony practically bounces out of his seat at the research notes Bruce gives him, some secret project he’s been working on privately for months now that he’s apparently decided to bring Tony in to help on. Thor completely misses the point and gets them all something from Asgard ("I assure you, Son of Coul, it is completely harmless,") that shines like a gem stone and sits warmly in their hands. Steve offers Pepper a heartfelt “Thank you,” at the professional drawing pencils she presents to him while Natasha rolls her eyes at Tony’s giftcard to a local highclass shoe outlet. Natasha’s gift to Pepper is a prepaid, all-inclusive package at a spa-center in Paris and Bruce gives Clint a soft, pleased smile at the out-of-print book of East Asian meditation techniques. 

“Looks like you’re last, Cupid.” Tony says, passing Clint the final unopened package. 

“Gee, I wonder who this could be from.” Clint deadpans, taking in the Captain America giftwrap in amusement.

Phil flicks him on the back of the head. “Don’t be a brat.”

Clint chuckles and opens it up. He’s not really sure what to expect — Phil’s always been a little bit eccentric about his choice in gifts — but a tie is probably at the very bottom of his list. He’s about to comment, maybe whine a bit, when he runs a finger over the fabric, takes in the cheap polyester and the horrible Rudolph print. When he realizes just what, exactly, he’s holding, he can’t help it. He throws his head back and laughs.

“You’re an asshole, Phil.” He says, affection in every syllable.

Phil just hums as he takes a sip of his coffee. The purple sharpie has faded over the years and the handle broke off ages ago, but it’s still his favorite mug, and he’s careful to set it aside so it doesn’t get broken when Clint yanks him down for a kiss that ends in catcalls and ribbing from the rest of the team.

**Author's Note:**

> The bit about Tony making an improved roomba is a pretty blatant nod to [scifigrl47](http://archiveofourown.org/users/scifigrl47/pseuds/scifigrl47)'s fantastic [verse](http://archiveofourown.org/series/18228), which I dearly hope everyone has already read.
> 
> Thank you for reading and Happy Holidays ♥
> 
>  
> 
> Originally posted on 12/19. Edited 12/20.
> 
> EDIT 1: because I was a terrible person and _forgot Thor_. I'm sorry, Thor! You deserve to participate too.  
>  EDIT 2: Because I somehow royally fucked up the publication date during EDIT 1. *headdesk*


End file.
